Apple iPhone Manufacturing Rumored To Be Coming To The US

While Apple products are designed in the US, Apple iPhone manufacturing, among other products take place in China. But word has it that this could change and Apple iPhone manufacturing could be coming to the US in the future. Why is this so? We are going to talk about just that.

Sources of Nikkei report that Apple asked its partners Pegatron and Foxconn about producing a plan regarding moving productions to the US. In return, Foxconn complied but Pegatron rejected to make a plan saying that the cost of production would be too high.

Nikkei’s sources said: “Apple asked both Foxconn and Pegatron, the two iPhone assemblers, in June to look into making iPhones in the U.S. Foxconn complied, while Pegatron declined to formulate such a plan due to cost concerns”

I agree, Apple iPhone manufacturing in the US would be increasingly expensive. That is why the phone is being made overseas in the first place. Otherwise, why would Apple not make it in the companies own country?

Another source said that Foxconn boss Terry Gou “had been less enthusiastic due to an inevitable rise in production costs”, adding: “Making iPhones in the U.S. means the cost will more than double”.

The cost of labor is extremely low in China as compared to the US. Among other factors, China is also a technology hub where manufacturers can get the tech they need readily.

President-elect Trump brought Apple into the spotlight by saying the following in one of his speeches:

“We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries”

While I can see why the new president would want to bring Apple iPhone manufacturing to the US the cost of making the device would increase significantly and this will impact the average consumer. I do not think Apple would be fine with a reduced profit margin.

Bringing Apple iPhone manufacturing to the US would increase job availability but one can argue that instead of paying high labor, Apple could go ahead and use assembly lines that comprise of robots. That would make human labor obsolete and kill the whole purpose of bringing Apple iPhone manufacturing to the US.

“When Jabil Circuit Inc., the world’s third-largest contract manufacturer by revenue, needed to quickly ramp up production of its electronics components a few years ago, the company was able to add 35,000 workers in China in less than six weeks”

The WSJ talks about the future of the Apple iPhone manufacturing process:

“some manufacturing jobs done in China with human labor could be lost to machines if production moves back to the US”